Z80 Debugger

maziac

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A debug adapter for use with the ZEsarUX ZX Spectrum Emulator.
Installation
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VS Code Z80 Debug Adapter

Note: you need to install at least ZEsarUX version 8.0

The Z80-Debug-Adapter (z80-debug) lets you use Visual Studio Code (vscode) as IDE for ZEsarUX (a ZX Spectrum emulator). With this extension it is possible to debug assembler programs built for the ZX Spectrum. It's primary intention is to support building new programs, i.e. programs with existing assembler source code. (It may also be used without source code to debug binaries but in that case the support is very limited and you could probably better directly debug at ZEsarUX.) The biggest help it offers is that you are able to step through your sources and that z80-debug is aware of all labels and can give hints to what label a number resolves.

The z80-debug connects to ZEsarUX via a socket connection. ZEsarUX offers quite a few commands accessible via socket according to the so-called zrcp (ZEsarUX Remote Control Protocol). See ZEsarUX for more information.

Note: The Z80-Debug-Adapter does not include any support for building from assembler sources. For this you need to create a build task yourself. For an example look here: https://github.com/maziac/z80-sample-program

Sprites:

  • Display of sprites with register indices and position
  • Display of all patterns with indices

Execution time:

Unit tests:

Features

  • supports ZEsarUX emulator (>= v8.0)
  • reads .list and .labels files
    • supports stepping through source code
    • either in .list file or in .asm files
  • step-over, step-in, step-out, continue, pause
  • breakpoints (and breakpoints with conditions)
  • display of
    • disassembly
    • Z80 registers
    • stack
    • callstack
    • tbblue sprites and patterns
  • changing of Z80 registers from vscode
  • labels
    • number-label resolution, i.e. along with numbers also the corresponding label is displayed
  • hovering
    • registers: reveals its contents and associated label
    • labels: reveals their value
  • watches of labels
  • formatting registers
    • customizable formatting for registers, e.g. format as hex and/or decimal and/or label etc.
    • different formatting for registers while hovering
  • memory viewer / editor
  • automatic display of memory that is pointed to by HL, DE, etc.
  • change of program counter through menu
  • support for assembler unit tests with code coverage display.

Constraints

  • supports only ZEsarUX emulator
  • build output must
    • create a .list file (support for sjasmplus, Savannah's z80asm, z88dk).
    • alternatively you can use other list files with limited functionality, please consult the documentation. You can also simply fetch a disassembly of your code from ZEsarUX. Please see the "List file" section in the documentation.
    • create a .sna file containing the binary

Installation

Prerequisites

In order to use z80-debug you need

z80-debug

In Visual Studio Code simply install "Z80 Debugger" (maziac.z80-debug) from the Marketplace.

There are 2 other extensions that are not required to work with z80-debug but may help:

  • asm-code-lens:
    • Z80 assembler syntax highlighting
    • completions, references, jump to label, renaming
  • z80-unit-tests:
    • an extension to start/debug unit tests from a graphical UI

Both can be installed from the market place.

Usage

Please look at the documentation 'Usage of the VS Code Z80 Debug Adapter'.

License

z80-debug is licensed under the MIT license.

The source code is available on github.